Has the publishing industry capsized?

If you are an author, a writer, or even have an idea for a book, there are some things you should know about the world of publishing today. Namely, it is that the importance of getting published may have changed by 180 degrees to the way it was when I became an editor in 1997. Or maybe that is not the best way to say it. To me, it feels like it has flipped completely upside down.

So, let’s begin by saying you have just written—or have a great idea for—a book…

It used to be that you could write a great manuscript, get a publisher to pick it up, have it placed on a shelf in a bookstore, some influential people would buy it, love it, and tell all their friends about it, creating more and more sales. Suddenly, even though you were previously unknown, your book hits a couple of bestseller charts and then begins to climb steadily.

Sure, it was really tough to do this, and it didn’t happen the vast majority of the time, but it did happen—and it seemed to happen enough that it was worth going this route. Now, that is a lot more like buying a lottery ticket than it is a sound strategy for getting your message out. Sure, you could win, but the odds are more likely you would be bitten by a shark somewhere in Colorado.

Books are still important to getting your message out, but . . .

The traditional model was that you would publish a book and then use it to build a following—a tribe of people who are grateful for what you have to say because it is touching their lives in some significant way. Today, you really have to build that tribe—what Michael Hyatt and others now call a Platform—before you have any hope of getting a traditional publisher to consider picking up your book.

As Michael Hyatt frequently says, “Content is [still] king, but platform is queen”—and as the great saying from My Big, Fat Greek Wedding puts it, “The man is the head, but the woman is the neck—and she can turn the head any way she wants.” If we want to get our message out, we have to find a happy marriage between creating content and developing a tribe.

The tough news is it is more difficult than ever to publish a book with a traditional publisher. Not only that, but many who have wandered into the realm of self-publishing will echo Barbarossa from Pirates of the Caribbean, “You’re off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be monsters.”

But the good news is—well, let me put it this way: “Do you need to start with a printed book?”

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not a harbinger of doom saying books are ancient history. In fact, I think anyone who has written a book still earns a tremendous badge of respect over those who haven’t. (Don’t believe me? Just watch any TV documentary and you will see the person who holds several academic degrees carries the same authority as the one who wrote such-and-such a book, even though you have never heard of that book nor know if it is any good.)

No, what I am saying is that your book no longer has to come first.

Same material and great research, different form

The web has opened up a new world of incredibly low-cost “publishing” with blogs, vlogs, e-books, white papers, cheat sheets, online teaching, e-mail campaigns, etc., etc. In essence, the gatekeepers of old—agents, acquisitions editors, and publishers—no longer hold all of the keys. They no longer stand between you and your potential audience. You can get online and build a tribe without having to get a book published first. This can potentially save you incredible amounts of time and expense.

Does that make it easier? Well, yes and no. The only thing we can be sure of is that it’s different. It’s just a little upside down. It means negotiating book deals has changed and we should change our emphasis to be more concerned about building relationships with our content rather than worrying about organizing an entire book first. Of course, building a platform online takes consistency, strategy, and a good deal of focused effort.

And it also means, in an increasingly noisy world, content is more important than ever. Why? Let’s just work off of Michael Hyatt’s metaphor about content and platform and our quote from My Big, Fat Greek Wedding: the queen may be more important and in command than ever before, but it takes a king to win a queen. People aren’t going to follow us if we put out poor content.

So there’s the rub. You’ve got the expertise—you know something the world needs to know and could be positively impacted through—so how do you turn that into great content that is going to draw the attention of the tribe who needs it the most?

10 Comments

I agree! Content and platform now go hand in hand, and while you can have content without the platform, it is usually perceived as weak and ineffectual.

I strongly believe that books are one of the best ways not only to publish great content, but also build your platform and business at the same time.

People see writing a book as such a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Small books (~10,000 to 20,000 words) that focus on a tighter niche are more easily consumed by the reader and thus more likely to have their ideas implemented and spread. The reader who experiences success from implementing a book’s ideas is much more likely to spread the word of how great they thought that book was.

Anyone who has maintained a blog probably has enough content already to make at least one book if not several. Take that content, organize it, tie it together into a cohesive whole, and publish it. It costs relatively little these days to pay an expert to have a book professionally designed and published and to start having that book work for you.

Great insights, Chris. I definitely agree, though I think larger books will still hold a lot of sway as well. I think, too, this is transforming the way we gather and develop that content, and clear writing and well developed thoughts are going to be more important than ever. Maybe what it will mean is getting rid of books that have one basic idea and tons of fluff to blow it up into 200-pages, rather than producing books worthy of that length. If e-books open the door to doing more precise and better honed books, I can’t see that doing anything but making life better–except for the fact that there are so many of them and how do we know which are worth reading and which don’t even have that one basic idea? Hmm. I think that is the topic of a different post.

As the Information Age progresses, I think we’re going to see more focus on the curation process. This process will probably become so necessary and valued that we’ll see curation become a business or part of a business process. Have you thought about engaging in that service? I know I have, and I have plans for engaging in that for my upcoming blog site.

It’s the stuff you leave out that matters. So constantly look for things to remove, simplify, and streamline. Be a curatior. Stick to what’s truly essential. Pare things down until you’re left with only the most important stuff. Then do it again. You can always add stuff back in later if you need to.

From Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

For me, I think there is a tension between a well-developed thought and refining away the excess and what is redundant. It is the aim of what is becoming content marketing, but not many are getting it right yet. That gives me hope, though, for us editors! 🙂

That’s a great idea. We know some people who have built a business on that. I am going to start doing some review in this space as well, I think. Let me know where you’re posting those.

John
on June 26, 2014 at 2:18 pm

I tried to get the image in here, but couldn’t. Google “face or goblet” and get that famous black and white silhouette that looks like a face or goblet. Publishing is getting jostled severely by the implications of “a picture is worth a thousand words” (then a video is worth a million), but when it gets right down to it and you want to know whether the image is of a face or a goblet, someone has to be able to use words, with the correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. In an era when truth is getting blurred and photo image software can make a graphic do what we want, there may be a need to pique interest with graphics, supply specifics with words and compel the user to go from image to text.

Yeah, taking the keys from the gatekeepers is empowering in a lot of ways, but it also means we have to reach audiences who are now gatekeepers for themselves. How do we know who to trust and who is just blowing smoke? It’s not easy, but, over time, I think it will happen. Until then, we need to be gatekeepers over our own integrity and the integrity of what we send out. Right now, that is my main focus. We’ll see how that goes. 🙂

The same thing that has turned publishing upside down, for a large segment of the population, has also turned journalism upside down, for that segment. There is a “show” after Good Morning America on ABC where 4 (or 6) 20-35 year olds sit around with their laptops and talk about videos that have gone viral. Yellow journalism has become animated. That is the depth that people want, or tolerate, or have time for. Will and Ariel Durant publish a multi-volume series on history? No way! Hopefully Marx wouldn’t get read on Das Kapital in this environment, or Hitler on Mein Kampf, but I bet someone would do the Reader’s Digest condensed version faster than the Durants.

We do seem a world headed to know a lot less about s lot more things. But then, at the same time, that provides opportunity formthose willing to dig deeper. You have to believe quality content will always rise to the top. And those putting out that content will be the ones people learn to trust.